[ADMIN, META] Further Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary

[rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin]

On Wed, 22-May-1985 14:06:07 EDT in article <10...@brl-tgr.ARPA> on net.ham-radio, stepha...@Xerox.ARPA writes:

> Just a note to tell you that the ARRL bulletins are well appreciated.
>
> Joe N2XS


Joe,

You are quite welcome. If you are still with us today, be assured that
a chosen few are reverently preserving the century-long tradition and
sacred mission of bulletin relay (one of the "R's" in "ARRL") in an
unbroken legacy and heritage chain, extending all the way back to the
station of the legendary Hiram Percy Maxim, W1AW. As an heir to the
silencer, and the inventor of the muffler, he would neither be silenced
nor muffled.

In going through our archive of past retrospectives over the years, we
have noticed that we mostly publish them in the springtime. This
practice is especially meaningful to us as spring has historically been
a time of new beginnings and in our radio hobby, a time for new insights
into old technical problems. I hope you, too, will be helped and
inspired by these writings of an old ham.

A famous man in advertising once said, "If you don't like what is being
said, then change the conversation." We are pleased to have turned the
conversation to the many laudable achievements of amateur radio and
amateur radio operators, as well as the continued excitement and
attention given to our tireless good works towards its positive
presentation to the general public.

Some years back, we searched far and wide for the most universal and
welcoming forum to transmit amateur radio information. We consulted
fellow amateurs, as well as the highest echelons of media and
entertainment. A seminal white-paper, ostensibly authored on behalf of
Dr. Eugene Spafford of Purdue University, from late March of 1993
entitled, "Warning: April Fools Time again (forged messages on the
loose!)" convinced us that most suitable forum was the Usenix Network,
commonly known as Use-Net. We were also reassured by the transcripts of
the late departed Judge Moriarty Wapner's "Stupid People's Court" from
the mid-1980's, including some landmark proceedings as, "The Case of the
Rampant Knuckleheads," and, "The Case of Outraged English Majors vs. The
Net," that we were joining a community with a proud tradition of
selflessly conveying only the most accurate and useful information to a
broad, interested audience, as well that which universally respects the
rule of law. We also felt that amateur radio operators like ourselves
were a natural fit for this network for several reasons:

- The requirements of initial and ongoing qualification for federal
licensing means that we are at least nominally sane and law-abiding.

- We are able to work towards projects and goals that require
long-term, organized effort.

- We are experts with technology, self-training, and volunteer service.

- We are passionate enough about our pursuits, and the history and
legacy of our century-old avocation, to think that something like
Usenet is actually important.

But, as everyone knows, as near-universal as this information
superhighway may be, even Usenet has not built sufficient off-ramps to
reach the totality of huts and hearths throughout the globe. To ensure
the widest dissemination to a grateful and knowledge-hungry population,
each approved article is also read aloud over phone, as well as
hand-keyed in Morse Code, over all bands from our station K-O-RRAM,
which is operated 24/7 from our powerful transmitters and swamp-grounded
antenna range in Okeechobee, Florida. We identify every 10 minutes with
the sonorous and unmistakable dulcet tones of the voice of the late
Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD, who made these recordings in the last years
before his death as a perpetual legacy to a pastime he held so dear. We
are encouraged by the numerous positive callbacks from listening
stations after each bulletin transmission concludes. For example, our
"SK" is often followed by a prompt reply filling in the remaining
letters of the word "SKILL." This aligns closely with impressions on
the Usenet side, where many of our readers will proudly announce that
they use a powerful feature of modern newsreader software known as
"skillfiles" to quickly identify and filter our newsgroup's valuable
contents. We are indebted to the amateur radio community for their kind
expressions of goodwill in this regard towards our quest to improve the
overall human condition.

For nay, we do not presume ourselves to be Saints in Scientific Garb,
our antenna farms filled with Yankee Doodle Dipoles! Our moral
imperative surely does not rise to that of, say, military doctors
tending to the wounded in mobile surgical hospitals behind the front
lines in the Korean War. Rather, like Hiram, every last one of us is
but an humbled Herbert Hoover Ham, with laurels raised up to heaven
alone. And with heaven's providence, we will persevere.

Like the equally modest Herbert Hoover Dam, a Herbert Hoover Ham is
bound, by both the laws of nature and destiny, to hold back the silt and
other detritus flowing downstream, allowing only the purest and
unadulterated fluents to pass through, with which to turn the very
dynamos of civilization.

A critical part of this necessary filtering is to require all article
contributors to identify themselves in accordance with the Rapp Plan.
The Plan was initially proposed in the Letters to the Editor section of
the November 1946 issue of QST magazine, and widely adopted during the
mid-20th Century. Briefly, the Plan consists of a code group or
"HAHWEHS" report sent immediately after the signal report (RST) and the
location (QTH). A sample HAHWEHS report would be:

"LARS 55 6-1 180 BWN BLK 76-42-6060"

This brief bit indicates to the receiving operator that the man at the
other end is called "Lars" by his friends, that he is 55 years old,
stands 6 feet 1 inch tall, weighs 180 pounds, has brown eyes and black
hair, and that his Social Security number is 76-42-6060. The HAHWEHS
system derives its name, of course, from the first letters of each of
these gems of information (Handle-Age-Height-Weight-Eyes-Hair-Social
Security) and makes it easy to remember the sequence. We urge its
immediate adoption, or Usenet is doomed!

For just as a man by the name of Noah once saved our doomed world with
an ark of wood, amateur radio performs a similar service with an arc of
electricity, a technical miracle that is wielded as a flaming sword of
righteousness to illuminate a too-oft darkened planet. Communications
on this earth from pole to pole, whether to others in this world, or
from another world, fulfills this charge. This is not science fiction,
but science fact.

Our own sword of righteousness takes the form of a replica of the Wouff
Hong that is displayed in the lobby of our newsgroup's World
Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Under it is a sign that reads:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men
to do nothing."

- Edmund Burke

As a convenience to our subscribers visiting the headquarters building,
articles may be typed in at any one of the state-of-the-art,
green-screen VT100 glass CRT terminals found in our air-conditioned
Article Workshop. If you do not have time to assemble an entire
submission yourself, one of our moderators will be glad to do it for
you, just for the pleasure it gives him or her (no tipping please).

Those that know us well do appreciate that we are not given to
self-aggrandizing braggardry. Rather we will simply turn to our copious
admirers who have widely hailed our joint moderation with
uk.radio.amateur as the greatest Anglo-American cooperation since FDR
and Churchill. Sitting together at mass parade on the afterdeck of the
battleship HMS Prince of Wales, these two great men formed between our
divine-favored nations a consecrated bond and alliance against Hitler.
Hitler himself would later rant, to no avail, against, "those Cincinnati
liars" (Cincinnati, of course, being a suburb of Omaha). In keeping
with this storied past, our mass parade today, conducted over Skype,
included an unpretentious Pledge of Allegiance ceremony on this side of
the Atlantic, and a rousing rendition of "God Save Queen" on theirs. A
simple dedication, but a powerful prophylactic against evil.

As further evidence of our special relationship with colleagues in the
British Isles, the video simulcasts over amateur television from sister
station G-O-RRAM at Rugby are often followed by a gracious viewer
transmitting a famous wartime portrait of Churchill giving his legendary
"V for Victory" sign. Victory to us all, indeed.

FDR and Churchill prevailed over the military fascism of their day by
not shrinking from a fight, but we know that the emerging cyber-fascism
of our present day is not fought with a dreadnought-class battle-ship,
but rather with our peerless team-based moderator-ship, and not with
unified military command of battle-groups, but with deft technical and
political leadership of news-groups. We are well aware that before
called upon for our great mandate, there were no cyber-ships of the line
plying these choppy waters, only unflagged, itinerant gunboats engaging
in random harassment and piracy. Our having survived over a decade of
prosecuting this slow, taxing war of attrition has most assuredly given
us profound insights into this vexing challenge. Now we have received
word that victory is at hand on multiple fronts. Some victories were
hard-won, some just called for the requisite amount of patience to wait
for opponents to merely be hoisted by their own petards. As a result of
this courage and discipline, our Great White Fleet now stands tall with
dignity to protect these deep and cyan-hued cyber-seas from such
unlawful combatants, and shield all those innocents formerly afraid to
speak any truth. We therefore beseech all hands to join us in a Call
for Victory.

For if we ever did have a flagship, we would wish to name it the
S.S. Mike Godwin, to be christened as a namesake of this distinguished
scholar of cyber-law and letters. We would hope that this notable
public figure would give his consent to this use of his likeness as an
endorsement and blessing of our newsgroup's charter. We also know that
if so designated, this precious flagship must remain on top of our
shining city on a hill. Should it ever slip from that lofty perch, the
probability will approach unity that it will slide downhill, rapidly
pick up speed, and crash through someone's living room. And no one
wants to live to see that happen.

Simply put, our newsgroups were forged in the earliest years as the twin
goddesses of cyber-virtue, Usenetta Britannia and Usenetta Columbia,
arose from out the Azure Main to stand together, through the eternal
ether, as an unyielding vanguard.

Conclusions

The history of amateur radio is a glorious one of 100 years of progress.
A proud history, and who knows what the next 100 years will bring?
Surely we need new fields to conquer.


In all humility,

Larson E. Rapp III, WIOU

Chief Historian and Technology Officer

Route 128, Kippering-on-the-Charles, Massachusetts, USA

April 1, 2017